Doing The Right Thing ATA’s new Chairman of the Board Will Bruser is ready to do all he can to deliver a big year for Alabama Trucking. By Ford Boswell Will Bruser rarely slows down. From the moment his feet hit the floor in the morning to when his head hits the pillow at night, he’s constantly thinking of ways he can help improve Alabama’s trucking industry. He officially took the reins of the Alabama Trucking Association in July as its new Chairman of the Board, but for more than a decade, the 41-year-old President of the Birmingham, Ala.-based Truckworx has been an integral part of the Alabama Trucking family lending his resources, talent and support to any cause or initiative to benefit trucking. His support of the ATA, its mission, and the industry he’s grown to love, hasn’t been by chance, either. It’s been part of the plan all along — and now, he has big plans for ATA. He lists nextgen workforce development, shoring up ATA’s political action committee coffers for the next election cycle, and improving the industry public image as his main priorities. But he also wants to improve membership relations and bring more members into the fold so that the Association can move forward collectively to achieve its goals. With an engaged and supportive community of truckers behind him, he’s confident ATA can bring about real change and success for trucking.
Background Bruser grew up in Pelham, Ala. His father, Buddy, was a salesman for a crane equipment distributor, and his mother, Carol, was a community leadership developer for Leadership Shelby County and the University of Montevallo. Never one to shy away from working, Bruser kept busy cutting grass in the neighborhood as a young teen, and in high school, worked at a pet store — a gig, he says, ended abruptly when he was asked to A LABAMA T RUCKER • 3 RD Q UARTER 2021
pull a tarantula from its aquarium for a customer to have a better look. “My manager told me all I had to do was place my arm in the tank, and the spider would slowly crawl up my arm and just sit there,” he recalls. “But the thing jumped on my hand, I spun around and slung the spider on the ground. Needless to say, I am glad that was my last summer job.” While attending the University of Alabama, where he studied business and mar-
grew antsy and started looking for an outside sales job. Since his sophomore year at UA, he dated Tracy Mitchell, daughter of former Kenworth of Alabama President and former ATA Board Member Bob Mitchell. One weekend he and Tracy were visiting her family’s home when Bob asked him to step into his home office so the two could talk. Bob said that he understood that he and Tracy were becoming more serious about
Since taking over as president of Truckworx in 2013, Bruser has revamped the company culture, its mission, and brought in talented people to provide the best level of customer service.
keting, Bruser worked at an area farm doing odd jobs and later performed general equipment maintenance for a local crane company. In his spare time, he also hunted every chance he got with his yellow lab, Murdock. His first professional job was for Cowin Equipment Co. rental division working the phones, taking customer orders, scheduling equipment deliveries and triaging service calls, but after about six months of sitting at a desk alone in a mobile trailer office, he
their future together, and also knew that he had a job offer with his dad’s crane company, but wanted to ask if he’d consider coming to work for him selling Kenworth trucks. “At the time, I didn’t know what (Bob) did and had never thought about trucks, much less selling them,” Bruser recalls. “Bob and I had never really had any deep conversations before that. It was always cordial, but he was always coming and going with his work. To be honest, I re5
